The Supreme Court's trans ruling is the new Brexit. Its opponents won't accept that they've lost
This was the court's interpretation of the 2010 Equality Act. As such, legal protections afforded to women under the act are restricted to those born female. In short – trans women are not legally women.
The justices' clear ruling – which promises to have wide-ranging implications for single-sex spaces and services – is proof that biology matters. And it was a relief to many who have argued for the dignity, privacy and safety of women.
It means lesbians, who have found their dating apps and events inundated with men claiming to be women, will be able to meet up without biological males being present. It also means that in prisons and hospitals and refuges, vulnerable women will not have to share their spaces with such men.
And it restores some sanity to a discussion that has been propelled by militant activists who insist that their fetishes and delusions are radical, doing no favours to those trans people who do just want to get on with their lives.
Open up social media and you still find hordes of men insisting they are biological women. These people are beyond rational argument, and will carry on shrieking and punching down. This was to be expected.
What is shocking, though, are the number of public bodies that are refusing to act on the court's ruling. The law is not optional. The provision of single-sex spaces is something that most organisations are able to facilitate – be that toilets or changing rooms. If they are concerned that their provision for trans people would be insufficient, they can simply provide gender-neutral spaces, too.
The reduction of the principle of this legislation to endless discussion about loos, is part of the institutional denial that's at play.
The BMA, the Fire Brigades Union, Equity, the UCU (University and College Lecturers), teachers, NHS unions and civil servants are just some of those refusing to accept that however much you chant 'trans women are women', the law has said this is not the case.
Among those losing patience with those refusing to accept the ruling is the Prime Minister, who said he had 'accepted' and 'welcomed the ruling'.
'Everything else flows from that as far as I'm concerned… All guidance of whatever kind needs to be consistent with the ruling and we need to get to that position as soon as possible,' Sir Keir Starmer told reporters on Sunday.
In other words, get on with it. But that is not what is happening, as the trans rights lobbyists continue to mislead people about what equality law is. This is the result of often well-meaning or bewildered folk having gone along with whatever groups like Stonewall fed them about trans ideology. (And it must also be said that Starmer's current position is a long way from where he and his Labour party were a few years ago).
Now, we find ourselves in a situation reminiscent of Brexit, when there was a refusal by swaths of the pro-EU camp to accept the result of the referendum.
Valuable resources were wasted by those who felt they could overturn the result by having a second vote. Even as someone who backed Remain, this always seemed to me a complete waste of time.
Looking back, Brexit disrupted a complacent, liberal consensus. Neighbours told me at the time that they knew of nobody who would vote Leave, which of course was precisely the problem.
Similarly, the arguments around women asserting their rights have also come as news to those who only get their information via The Guardian /BBC axis where the crimes of men – even rape – are attributed to women.
Those pushing for trans rights have benefited from the public NOT being properly informed about what is going on. Middle-aged men arguing for children to be sterilised, medicalised and denied puberty through drugs, is not only creepy but, as the evidence examined by Dr Hilary Cass has shown us, actually harmful. Even some of America's 'progressive' media outlets – such as The New York Times – are having to gently reveal facts documenting how 'gender-affirming care' is hurting children.
Nonetheless, a completely unthinking trans activist hegemony has been so deeply embedded in our major institutions that nurses demanding to get changed in private is some sort of insurgency. Madness.
The Supreme Court ruling restores some balance. But other parts of society must catch up and get over their befuddlement. Ofcom – an unelected quango which, we ought to remember, refused to censure the BBC for referring to Scarlet Blake, a biological man who murdered a stranger and had livestreamed the killing of a cat, as a woman – has this week come under fire for saying broadcasters must give airtime to claims that biological men are women when covering trans issues.
We don't do this with climate change denial any more. Why do it with biology?
The reality is that some went so far down this particular rabbit hole that they now have no idea how to climb back out. To state that men are not women, an obvious truth, is not to discriminate against a 'uniquely marginalised' group. It is a return to reality that protects women's rights. The trans rights grift is over – the sooner everybody realises as much, the better.
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